Washington DC –
United States President Barack Obama should ensure that human rights are a
central focus in the upcoming summit of Southeast Asian leaders in the US, Human
Rights Watch said today in a letter
to Obama.
Obama is scheduled to host the leaders of the 10-country Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on February 15-16, 2016, at the Sunnylands
estate in California.

“ASEAN’s many authoritarian leaders include people implicated in grievous
human rights abuses, war crimes, and coups d’etat that would make them
ineligible for US visas if they weren’t heads of government,” said John
Sifton, Asia advocacy
director at Human Rights Watch. “The summit risks empowering and even
emboldening ASEAN’s abusive leaders unless President Obama emphasizes human
rights issues and invites the participation of civil society groups.”

Human Rights Watch urged Obama to hold sessions around the summit in which
governments hear directly from leaders of civil society, human rights, and
environmental groups, as occurred during the August 2014 US-Africa Summit in
Washington, DC.

Obama should also communicate to ASEAN governments that they should, ahead
of the summit, release significant numbers of political prisoners and drop
charges against those facing politically motivated prosecutions – or expect
those issues to be raised publicly at the summit.

One of the ASEAN leaders, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, has ruled over
Cambodia for more
than 30 years,
using violence, intimidation, and politically motivated arrests and prosecutions
against all perceived opponents, while allowing high-level corruption and
cronyism to flourish. He refused to step down after losing an election in 1993,
and subsequently carried out a coup in 1997. He is also implicated in possible
crimes against humanity committed in the mid-1970s in eastern Cambodia when he
was a commander in the Khmer Rouge. The latest election in 2013 was
fundamentally flawed and the opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, is now living in
exile to avoid arrest in politically motivated cases. Because of his dismal
human rights record, it has long been US policy not to offer an official
invitation to visit the US to Hun Sen.

Other ASEAN leaders expected to attend include four unelected heads of
government. Thailand’s Prime
Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-ocha, who took power in a 2014 military coup, has
presided over a relentless crackdown on peaceful dissent and assembly. Prime
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam and
President Choummaly Sayasone of Laos preside
over one-party authoritarian states that deny basic freedoms and use censorship,
intimidation, and torture to maintain their party’s hold on power. The sultan of
Brunei, Hassal Bolkiah, one of the world’s few remaining hereditary government
leaders, has imposed a near complete ban on freedoms of expression, association,
and assembly.

The prime minister of Malaysia,
Najib Razak, implicated in a massive corruption scandal, has engaged in a major
crackdown on
the political opposition, civil society groups, and the media, including
imprisoning opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on trumped-up charges.

“President Obama shouldn’t be rewarding abusive leaders with the prestige of a
summit in the US,” Sifton said. “Inviting to the US people who dismantle
democracies or systematically repress their own people sends the wrong message
to the world about the US government’s respect for basic rights and freedoms.”

Human rights issues especially relevant to ASEAN countries include the lack
of free and fair elections; excessive restrictions on freedoms of expression,
association, and assembly; unnecessary restrictions on civil society groups;
abuses against human rights defenders and other activists; women’s rights;
political use of courts; high-level corruption; lack of protections of refugees
and asylum seekers; human trafficking; and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender (LGBT) people.

“The US government’s diplomatic ‘rebalance’ to Asia could still bring
positive change if human rights and democracy are raised to the same level as
other US priorities in the region,” Sifton said. “Obama should make it publicly
clear to ASEAN leaders that he plans to make human rights issues a central part
of the summit.”